"Facebook is a huge identity risk." -- A security guru at K-State

Universities are reaching out into the "metaverse" to retain and attract the "gamer generation" of students.

One part of this endeavor relates to going out into the social software spaces in order to create identities and digital spaces around which they may interact, bond, and get familiar with the university brand.

An Invisible "Self"

In service of this idea, I recently went onto Facebook for some initial research. I made the account, rendered myself pretty much invisible, and started testing the tools.

I found some 200 who were linked to one of my email accounts. I saw a former student who was and is a star. I saw a whole lot of colleagues. I was tempted to reconnect with several but realized that I hadn't created my telepresence at all in that space. I hadn't put out any photos. No comments about favorite bands. No very cool or hip comments.

It must be my generation, I think ungenerously.

The Value of Privacy

I feel very little need to create a public digital personae. Information has always been polysemic. People believe whatever they want to anyway.

Anything built to digital space has to be kept fresh, or it gets boring and dated. It has to be tended like a digital garden, or else all sorts of automated junk gets attached.

And people seem to have a way of finding me easily enough. I don't know that I have sufficient hours in the day to connect with all the people I know, much less those I haven't connected to for a time.

And Much Later?

I wonder if what my students in their teens, 20s and 30s find cool about themselves will not quickly turn retro in a few more years. Uncool. I wonder if they'll slowly unpublish themselves, or if they'll keep updating and revising.

Would they have 5th and 10th and 20th year high school reunions digitally? Would they share their happy family stories with others? Or how will they manage these?